[MatKus]

I'm thinking if those raffle threads have sense in current form.
For me, hitting "submit" button 100 times per second was part of fun. And that is plus.
But since 3rd thread was closed, because noone more want's to participate in raffle, maybe just create system, where everyone, who wants to participate may just submit.
Or maybe something else than "make milion meaningful posts"? I'm not heavy poster, but i also don't like to speak when i don't have anything to say. But i've seen many posts about nothing or even directly saying "i'm just posting to increse my post count". And this just decreses clarity of forum making it harder to find meaningful posts.
But i don't see any good alternative. Some people don't have (hopefully yet) skill to make good photos to show for such contest, some don't have knowledge to help others, only few realy have knowledge to post rumors (and even, if they do, they usually can't say anything).

[aitrus3]

I'm thinking if those raffle threads have sense in current form.
For me, hitting "submit" button 100 times per second was part of fun. And that is plus.
But since 3rd thread was closed, because noone more want's to participate in raffle, maybe just create system, where everyone, who wants to participate may just submit.
Or maybe something else than "make milion meaningful posts"? I'm not heavy poster, but i also don't like to speak when i don't have anything to say. But i've seen many posts about nothing or even directly saying "i'm just posting to increse my post count". And this just decreses clarity of forum making it harder to find meaningful posts.
But i don't see any good alternative. Some people don't have (hopefully yet) skill to make good photos to show for such contest, some don't have knowledge to help others, only few realy have knowledge to post rumors (and even, if they do, they usually can't say anything).

Define "meaningful"? I've had a lot of fun along with a bunch of others in posts that weren't so serious. And the posts that are serious tend to have folks fighting more than anything.
As for pictures, we are a mixed bag, so I don't care if an inexperienced person posts a picture I deem as being not very good. Someone else might find it enjoyable and we are all learning. I tested the waters in Photo critique and only one or two folks had anything meaningful to say, and pretty much walked away from it with not much actual ideas that'd help. So why not just have fun when everything serious is so drab, dry, and boring on the site?

[Rondec]

I think it mainly has to do with a lot of folks already being entered into the raffle due to posting 180 times in the month. It was only the people who posted between 10 and 180 times who even had the option of entering a raffle thread.

[reh321]

Or maybe something else than "make milion meaningful posts"? I'm not heavy poster, but i also don't like to speak when i don't have anything to say. But i've seen many posts about nothing or even directly saying "i'm just posting to increse my post count". And this just decreses clarity of forum making it harder to find meaningful posts.
But i don't see any good alternative. Some people don't have (hopefully yet) skill to make good photos to show for such contest, some don't have knowledge to help others, only few realy have knowledge to post rumors (and even, if they do, they usually can't say anything).

I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningful post". In June I wanted to increase total post count, because that was needed to make the thing work under Adam's rules. I ended up being second highest poster that month, and third highest in July, but I didn't reach those levels by posting "blah, blah, blah"; I reached those levels by making comments on lots of photos, comments that were very similar to the ones people had always been making, but extending that approach to many other photos. In April, you could look at a page in PYP! and see thirty photos with comments such as "nice colors" or "I really like that", and ten photos with no comments at all, even though seven of the ten were just as good as the thirty that had received the comments {unfortunately there would always be a few that deserved no comment under the old "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" rule} - so I would make those comments on the seven previously 'unloved' photos and continue to ignore the others. If you consider the comments made in April and May "meaningless". then I guess mine were "meaningless" also, but I do not apologize for continuing the practices I saw already in force.

[UncleVanya]

I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningful post". In June I wanted to increase total post count, because that was needed to make the thing work under Adam's rules. I ended up being second highest poster that month, and third highest in July, but I didn't reach those levels by posting "blah, blah, blah"; I reached those levels by making comments on lots of photos, comments that were very similar to the ones people had always been making, but extending that approach to many other photos. In April, you could look at a page in PYP! and see thirty photos with comments such as "nice colors" or "I really like that", and ten photos with no comments at all, even though seven of the ten were just as good as the thirty that had received the comments {unfortunately there would always be a few that deserved no comment under the old "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" rule} - so I would make those comments on the seven previously 'unloved' photos and continue to ignore the others. If you consider the comments made in April and May "meaningless". then I guess mine were "meaningless" also, but I do not apologize for continuing the practices I saw already in force.

Here's what I did. I logged in and looked for ways to contribute. I did what you did also. I also scrounged older photo sale threads for interesting things that people may have overlooked. I dug through old posts and even took a dip into gallery shots from back in the dawn of time if they interested me and showed up on my page. I don't think the quality if my posts went down - but I was harder at work looking for places to post and contribute. There were times I may have bitten my tongue metaphorically rather than post even though that would bump the count because it didn't seem the right place or time.

I did worry people might get tired of my posts. I did not want to be a burden to anyone reading. I do think there is a fine line between what we did and what some people did to get their 10 posts. I saw more < 10 posters posting blah blah blah than those posting > 180 in the month. Let's be honest the ones posting > 180 are already pretty heavily invested in this place and want it to be a success not a failure - posting garbage isn't a way to make a place shine.

[reh321]

I think it mainly has to do with a lot of folks already being entered into the raffle due to posting 180 times in the month. It was only the people who posted between 10 and 180 times who even had the option of entering a raffle thread.

I saw many fewer of the "special cases" in the third "raffle" than there had been before - people who seemingly wanted a chance at the "prize" without doing the work. Often these would be people with exactly ten or eleven posts who didn't seem able to navigate the site, who needed help to find an actual "raffle" thread, and would enter "I want it" into every thread they found in the hope that it might be one of the "raffle" threads. I'm guessing that Adam's new rules prevented them from accruing the ten posts necessary to achieve eligibility in the first place.

[Mikesul]

Gift Horses always get there mouths rubbed raw.